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from amazonmgmstudios on instagram

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Yikes. Yeah, this confirms that nobody on Dontnod is involved in this adaptation (or was even asked to join). It's so disappointing to see, time and time again, other parties jump on LiS1's success to milk it without any respect for the original creators' ideas, talent, and intent with the story ending where it should.

Neil Druckmann was part of The Last of Us HBO, but even he couldn't get season 2 to match season 1 in viewership numbers or critical reception (adapted from an alterady polarizing sequel game), and he's now left the production to focus on Entergalactic. At best, I see the Life is Strange show being received as well as Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender: with the original creators not onboard, it'll probably be overwhelmingly mid with some confusing story deviations, baffling character changes to "modernize" a story that didn't need modernizing, and an overall very unmemorable product.

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To make up for the no bday art :>

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reappearing to wish my problematic king a happy birthday

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Happy birthday to the worst boy

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Happy birthday to my favorite bad but sad boy ✨

the face is partially based on Tomie.ryoko’s features (on Instagram)

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bonus sketch for the birthday boy :p

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happy birthday dickbagtheasshole <3

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made this amberscott animation a while back

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toxic yuri

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happy birthday seanie boy <3 i hope he’s living it up in puerto lobos today

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a little vicky painting for her bday <3

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I found your criticism/discussion of TC and LISDE about how it’s been sanitised to be less problematic but makes it less memorable to be really fascinating, if you could would you mind expanding on these points? I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on these topics if you’d want to share 😊

Sure, that's a great question! Sorry it took me so long to write an answer, but I promise I love these types of asks!

So when I look back at LiS1, it definitely has this wannabe edgy energy to it, but at least the characters had real bite. Looking at Lost Records reinforced how much the LiS1 characters were written with 90s sensibilities by Gen X writers at Dontnod. Despite the protagonists of LiS1 and 2 being born between 1994 and 2000, they still smoke cigarettes, toss around misogynistic and homophobic slurs, and listen to music of decades past. Dontnod still has them using smartphones and social media, but it's clear they still pull from their memories and old media they like. They were far less afraid to make their characters have unlikeable moments or make mistakes, probably because they had less to lose and underestimated the size of their audience.

Deck Nine, by contrast, led BtS with a younger, newer team. During rollout, the marketing campaign played up the apparent "challenges" of writing a teenage girl protagonist and kept citing the two woman writers at D9, including Mallory Littleton who was 20 at the time, and Ashly Burch as a story consultant. This was definitely in response to criticisms of "old white Frenchmen writing teenage girls" in LiS1, as if to say, "Don't worry! We will do better so BtS is immune to that criticism. It's less problematic for featuring female staff writers!" Even back in 2017, the need to live up to LiS1's unexpected success meant a more aggressive marketing campaign and trying to appeal to a wider audience. On the writing side, you can really tell how much every character is softened to make them more appealing and likable: Chloe has her nervous dorky moments around Rachel, Rachel shows real affection and flirts with Chloe when their relationship was much more ambiguous in LiS1, Frank and Chloe are practically buddy-buddy when Chloe can shoot him in LiS1, Nathan is suddenly just a misunderstood rich kid and you can stick up for him even though he fucking kills Chloe in LiS1, and you can choose to get along with David even though they go back to hating each other in LiS1. You can play D&D sincerely with Steph and Mikey when I don't think Dontnod's version of Chloe would be friends with them. In general, D9's new characters are overall pleasant, normal people, and that gets dialed up even more in True Colors. Someone like Alex who's been through years of parentification, abandonment, and abuse would definitely have far more baggage and worse coping mechanisms than what she shows in-game. Even her powers were introduced as a liability, like when she was infected with Mac's anger and beat him up, but that conveniently never happens again and Alex is a calm, well-adjusted adult who easily takes on the emotional burdens of all the people around her until the end of the game.

But in a broader cultural context, I believe that cancel culture and social media's effects on media consumption definitely plays into this sanitization. Cancel culture was already on the rise in the 2010s, and as the popularity of the LiS franchise grew, its reputation also grew more specific and precarious with each passing game. LiS inevitably became known for its progressive themes, queer rep, and emotional stories. Even though BtS retconned a lot from LiS1, and even though TC had an overall safe story that borrowed a lot from LiS1 to win back old fans, they did have far less ambiguous queer rep than LiS1. To young queer fans who were desperate for meaningful, canon, and engaging representation back in 2017, it was easy to put D9's games on a pedestal and blast Dontnod for being unable to commit to unambiguous representation. Dontnod has gotten a lot better since then, even if it took awhile: Tyler and Michael have a very cute, communicative romance in TMW, and Nora explicitly calls herself gay and you know how sapphic Lost Records is.

Also, being cancelled has real financial consequences. D9 and Square Enix saw the social and financial consequences of Dontnod telling a risky story with LiS2 with a road trip story, shifting cast of characters, a divisive child main character, and the unabashed depiction of racism in Trump-era America. The game was hated from the beginning from both sides of the political spectrum, and the long waits between episodes cause fan interest to peter out. Yes, you could applaud Dontnod's commitment to taking artistic risks, but games still need to make money, and Square responded by marketing True Colors as a "return to form" and releasing all episodes at once. Chapter 5 of TC seems to hint at the racist undertones of why Alex was a neglected child in the foster care system, but the game never dares to fully go there, now too afraid of haters tearing into it for being too "political." And if it is truly bad, fans will blame the artists for bad art, and it taints their name in all future projects, like with Double Exposure.

I also really believe a huge reason for this sanitization is because social media has simplified media and media consumption into basic, binary takes. Thanks to the internet, we've now assigned a person's enjoyment of media as equivalent to their moral compass or beliefs. Essentially, you are problematic for enjoying problematic media, even if the problematic ideas aren't endorsed by the author. I still remember an anon ask I got years ago where the anon asked for advice after being called an abuse apologist... because they liked Chloe Price! So you can see why Deck Nine might've felt the need to soften Chloe's character in her prequel and make her more "likable." The characters and ships are palatable and easy to defend... but honestly, it also makes them more boring and forgettable and less relatable.

Thank you for asking!

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Redraw of this one specific photo. Yeah, u know the deal.

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I complain abt art school a lot... but I get to make poorly disguised fan art so maybe its not all bad,,,

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it’s my birthday yayyyyyy i drew my two faves to celebrate <3